Newark schools widen graduation focus

1:35 AM,
Feb. 27, 2014

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Editor's note: Newark City Schools earned a C in graduation on its latest report card, with 85.9 percent of students graduating in four years. That's a vast improvement from the 2007-08 school year, when the rate was 68.8 percent, but it's still not where school administrators say they want to be.Raise the Rate is a collection of articles about Newark City Schools' mission to improve that rate - the road to graduation, what trips students up and how to help them earn a diploma.

Senior Kirkland Smith had all but decided he was giving up on high school.